


Once Upon a No

by okayokayigive



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 09:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayokayigive/pseuds/okayokayigive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is for everyone who’s ever been a fan of anything, who wants their characters to have the best stories and live the best adventures. Birthday fic, with love, for <a href="http://helplesslynerdy.tumblr.com">helplesslynerdy</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a No

**Author's Note:**

  * For [helplesslynerdy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helplesslynerdy/gifts).



_This is for everyone_  
who’s ever been a fan of anything,  
who wants their characters  
to have the best stories  
and live the best adventures.

 _But mostly this is for Ashley,_  
supplier of plot dragons,  
encourager of bad habits,  
and a very good friend.

~~~

**Once there was a girl named Thora, and she chose her own adventures.**

Everywhere she turned, she found a different story. Romances and action, sorrows and joy, grand holidays and quiet moments. Experiences, familiar and new—all waiting to be explored. Thora _liked_ exploring.

At the dawn of each day, which was well after lunch, really, Thora would choose a new story from the Vast Unknown. She came to love all the characters, well-worn and familiar or shiny and new, and found that she grew very, very cross when the characters were treated unkindly or acted out of turn. Characters were people, she reasoned, and there were some things people just shouldn’t do.

~~

As Thora grew, her beloved characters grew as well, gifting her with new stories, new adventures, and new perspectives. (Thora didn’t always agree with her stories, but she loved the characters all the same.)

With age came her _own_ perspectives and her _own_ words, and Thora began to wonder what it would feel like to create her very own adventures for the characters she loved so very much.

And so Thora began to write. At first, she combined elements of her favorite adventures—a scientist from one story became an heroic outlaw in another, while a woman from Messina found her eyes filling with tears on a Moroccan airstrip.

Thora wrote stories, and her stories were good.

~~

One day, having flung a story away in exasperation, Thora had an idea. What if she could change the stories she didn’t like, the ones where the characters were treated unkindly or acted out of turn?

Thora grabbed a book—a big, heavy, satisfyingly thick book—and cracked its spine open to the first page. A collection like this would be magnificent, she thought—fantastic, even. She grinned, and her tongue snuck out to play with the end of her favorite pen, gripped tightly and held above the page.

A collection like this deserved a name. A good one. She thought back to the old adventures, the ones that had changed through the ages, severed toes and deadly carnivorous beasties transformed into bedtime tales for coddled children. “Once upon a time…,” those old stories began–quite the starting point for this new adventure.

But these wouldn’t be old stories glossed over in sugar and spice. No. Thora was determined to explore, and explorations (she’d learned first-hand) often came with consequences. Ever-afters, sometimes, sure, but no happiness guaranteed.

With a nod of determination, Thora guided her hand across the title page, laying down the words in smooth, bold strokes:

**Once Upon a No.**

~~

Thora wrote and wrote, and wrote some more, covering page after page with word after word until her hair had grown long and brittle, her skin withered and papery, hands clawed and knuckles swollen.

She wrote of a girl who fell in love, and walked away to save herself. (Thora kept that one mostly the same, for the heroine was a badass—but the hero needed a bit of a dressing-down.)

She told of a girl who became a woman, who traveled far and wide, who lost time and lost love and lost battles and lost wars but who never once lost herself.

She spoke of a wolf who destroyed empires, the broken man who did his best to cage and tame and own her, and the fragmented landscape she left behind when she walked away, head held high.

She wrote of the ones who didn’t wait for a tour guide, hero, madman, or lover, but headed off on their own adventures instead; of heroes and heroines who grew up to defy expectations rather than define them; of broken trust that was never, ever mended; of worlds where the most extraordinary thing to be was the most ordinary girl of all.

Heroes died and lovers loved, uprisings rose and good people fell. Sometimes the princess won her prince, and sometimes she walked off with the one no one ever saw coming. (Sometimes, too, the princess lived quite happily alone, spinning stories and sunbeams in her tastefully decorated castle.)

In Thora’s words and Thora’s worlds, battered soldiers healed and victories were bitter; surprise kisses sparked epic loves; dinosaurs fought at the sides of war lords; hidden truths shattered great friendships; magic boxes held promises but sometimes not much else. Lies and lovers. Universes and small towns. Kingdoms and thieves. Different landscapes, different problems, different adventures and outcomes, different consequences.

Every story told a hundred different ways.

Every story just a little bit the same.

~~

Thora closed the book with a sigh and smoothed her hand across its cover. It was time.

This was the love and work and dreams of a lifetime, recorded in hand sloppy and neat, letters marred by tears and shaky with laughter.

She stood, joints popping from disuse, and stepped forward, casting her finished book into the Vast Unknown. For Thora knew that a story is nothing without someone to read it, someone to love it, someone to make it their very own.

Somewhere, far away, at the dawn of another day, which was well after lunch, of course, a small hand reached out into the Vast Unknown.


End file.
